SCI

About

Welcome to the Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI)

The Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI) was created in 2015 from the merger of two of Rice multidisciplinary research institutes, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the Rice Quantum Institute. SCI is the home of the Applied Physics Graduate Program and of several endowed postdoctoral research fellowships. It participates in establishing strong industrial collaborations, and takes part in novel educational and outreach programs, such as the Professional Science Master’s Program in Nanoscale Science. The Institute assists its members in forging new, cross-cutting and interdisciplinary research areas, and in seeking new means of supporting their work. Research in SCI encompasses advanced materials, quantum magnetism, plasmonics and photonics, biophysics and bioengineering, ultracold atom physics, condensed matter and chemical physics, and all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Rice University is merging two of its multidisciplinary research institutes, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the Rice Quantum Institute, to form a new entity, the Smalley-Curl Institute.

The merger was approved by Rice’s Board of Trustees Thursday and takes effect immediately, but Naomi Halas, the new institute’s director, said it will take several months to complete the consolidation.

“The merger and the choice of the name for the new, merged institute reflects the fact that these were two distinct but complementary institutes with a largely overlapping membership,” said Halas, who has directed both parent institutes for the past six months. “We anticipate that this merger will bring an even greater level of excitement for our research activities across campus and throughout the world.”

Halas said more than half of the faculty members of the Rice Quantum Institute and the Smalley Institute had joint membership in both entities. The Smalley-Curl Institute will support the activities of each of its parent institutes while simultaneously broadening its efforts to engage more faculty and students and foster new collaborations at the frontiers of science.

“We will establish a more open and interactive leadership by means of both internal and external advisory committees,” said Halas, Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, bioengineering, physics and astronomy, and materials science and nanoengineering. [ read more]